Maybe every tech company should go through the pitch process. In that process, founders learn a lot about their story, idea, pitch and value – as seen through the eyes of a bunch of investors. (Take that for what it is worth.)
Today’s headline – RingCentral’s 615% Share Price Increase Shows How Capitalism Can Build Wealth – and the latest IPO Valuations of Lyft, Uber, Pinterest and Slack demonstrate that IT IS ALL ABOUT MARKETING!
RingCentral has made good moves and their technology may or may not be better than the other 2000 providers in the UC space, but it is their marketing that has gotten them where they are. They are not profitable. They have the same features and functions as many others, but they have outspent their competitors in sales and marketing.
“Because RingCentral is loss-making, we think the market is probably more focused on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. That’s because it’s hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit.” [source]
How do you sustain growth? By spending on Marketing. The emphasis is on Marketing & Sales.
Uber was NOT the first car-sharing company. In fact, there were 20+ others before Uber came along. Why is Uber bigger? PR and money. Even bad PR worked in their favor for branding. Lyft raised a total of $4.9 billion in capital in 18 rounds, according to CrunchBase, while Uber has raised $24.7B in 23 rounds!
Pitching is about story telling. Marketing is about story telling.
If you look at your growth and it isn’t where you want it to be, examine your sales and marketing budget – and efforts. Then review the story you tell. (Then call RAD-INFO Inc to fix it at 813-963-5884)
For the most part tech marketing looks like this from GapingVoid:
basically ignored because we think the tech is everything.. and it isn’t. The best tech doesn’t win. The best marketing wins.